Ecash naysayers

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Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 17:02:52 -0500
From: Roderick Simpson <rod@wired.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv@lists.psi.com>
Subject: Ecash naysayers

Anyone heard a convincing naysayer of electronic cash? Who were they?

Best,
Rod


R o d e r i c k S i m p s o n                                rod@wired.com
A s s o c i a t e P r o d u c e r  T h e H o t W i r e d N e t w o r k
www.braintennis.com                            www.wiredsource.com

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Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox,
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson
The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/
FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://offshore.com.ai/fc97/

On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Robert Hettinga wrote:

> 
> --- begin forwarded text
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 17:02:52 -0500
> From: Roderick Simpson <rod@wired.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv@lists.psi.com>
> Subject: Ecash naysayers
> 
> Anyone heard a convincing naysayer of electronic cash? Who were they?
> 
> Best,
> Rod

The propblem with that question is that as phrased it stacks the deck
in favor of electronic cash.   What is "convincing"?  Find someone with a 
cogent critique of an electronic payments scheme or scheme, and I can 
guarantee that I can find someone, very likely on the WIRED editorial
staff, who won't be "convinced" by it.  What is a "naysayer"?  Someone
who presents a detailed critical technical analysis of a payments
scheme?  Someone who thinks that electronic payments represent the
Number of the Beast and are a sign of the coming Apocalypse?  Lastly,
what is "electronic cash"?  Chaumian anonymous digital cash?  Transmission
of credit card data?

The question is so poorly phrased as to be almost impossible to 
intelligently answer "yes".  Somewhere in it there is buried a real
question with a real answer.  Maybe Roderick Simpson will tell us
what it is.

PS:  I'm *not* a electronic cash naysayer.

Alan Bostick               | To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height
mailto:abostick@netcom.com | of elegance.
news:alt.grelb             |      Jean Genet
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick

At 9:56 AM -0800 1/4/97, Alan Bostick wrote:
>On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Robert Hettinga wrote:

>> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 17:02:52 -0500
>> From: Roderick Simpson <rod@wired.com>
>> To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv@lists.psi.com>
>> Subject: Ecash naysayers
>>
>> Anyone heard a convincing naysayer of electronic cash? Who were they?
>>
>> Best,
>> Rod
>
>The propblem with that question is that as phrased it stacks the deck
>in favor of electronic cash.   What is "convincing"?  Find someone with a
>cogent critique of an electronic payments scheme or scheme, and I can
>guarantee that I can find someone, very likely on the WIRED editorial
>staff, who won't be "convinced" by it.  What is a "naysayer"?  Someone
...

I think the problem is even more obvious: the "Brain Tennis" forum is a
crystallization of the worst tendency in journalism today: having two
opposing views on any issue. As on television, where two talking heads take
opposite postions, suggesting a roughly even split in popular opinion (even
if popular opinion--not to mention the underlying actual truth--is tilted
95-5).

Caveat: I've only followed a few of these "brain tennis" things, which is
what I assume Simpson is recruiting for, and I was sorely disappointed. But
not surprised.

--Tim May





Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
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